Manual pipe bending is common in the plumbing, piping, heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (“HVACR”) fields. For example, soft/annealed copper tubing is commonly used in fluid systems (liquid and gaseous), and must be bent on site into the necessary configuration. An HVACR technician, for example, will often use a manual pipe bender, e.g., a lever bender, to bend a piece of tubing rather than solder or braze a curved fitting onto the tubing. Manual tube/pipe bending allows a technician to bend the tubing to desired angles that may not be available with available fittings and is often also more time efficient and less costly.
A typical lever bender has two handles that are pivotable with respect to one another to bend a pipe placed into the bender. Two hands are needed to operate the two handles, in order to pivot them with respect to one another and bend the mounted pipe. The pipe is preferably held in place within the bender while bending, in order achieve a smooth and accurate bend at the desired location along the pipe. Accordingly, the user must stabilize the pipe in place within the bender, and also engage and operate the handles. This can be a cumbersome task. Thus, one drawback of currently available lever benders is the difficultly for a user to maintain a pipe in place in the bender prior to initiating the bending, and then bend the pipe.
Previous attempts to solve this problem include lever benders having different types of stop members for stabilizing the pipe during setup and/or while bending the pipe. However, none of the known stop members adequately maintain the pipe position in all directions during setup and while bending. Therefore, additional stabilization, e.g., by the user, is still required, or there is a risk of movement and/or inaccuracy in the resulting bend.